


all my past lives, they got nothing on me

by swallows (toska)



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, BUT NOT ESTINIEN'S FAMILY, Gen, OKAY SOME PEOPLE DIE, a character study that turns into a bit of a prelude for stuff, im weak, ok if its light estinien/ysayle vibes ITS BECAUSE IM WEAK OKAY
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-04
Updated: 2018-06-04
Packaged: 2019-05-18 03:00:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 722
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14844368
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/toska/pseuds/swallows
Summary: —In another life, Estinien’s family lives and along with them, so does his heart.





	all my past lives, they got nothing on me

**Author's Note:**

  * For [salts](https://archiveofourown.org/users/salts/gifts).



> gestures hands, i love estinien wyrmblood thanks for attending my ted talk 
> 
> this is un beta'd and written at 3am in a mess of feelings i hope i actually polish this later but talk to me about estinien lads

Estinien’s family lives and along with them, so does his heart. He is allowed to stay a boy much longer, instead of dealing with beasts razing down his village, his family and his home— he deals with sheep grazing down grass instead. There is a softness to him, one that in another life, he never would have had.

Estinien grows just enough and just in time to be drafted into war. He grows up to be a dragoon, but he does not grow up to become the Azure Dragoon. Maybe he has simpler dreams, dreams of coming home to his family and dreams of peacetime and herding sheep. He doesn’t get the taste for battle, doesn’t find himself lost in duty the way that some have. He’s just another dragoon this time around, and this time when he talks to Aymeric, his conversations have a mutually shared feeling for hope.

He’s content to be another soldier, brusque and to the point and still willing to sass off to his superiors. Estinien goes into war, without a sole purpose of revenge, knowing that he is expendable just like every other men in his platoon. He talks to men,  ( _boys_ , the voice inside his head corrects)— boys, who lost everything to the scorching, blazing heat of the beast’s jaw, boys who were all taken in by Ser Alberic. Estinien doesn’t think about what it means to plant seeds of hatred and revenge, and watches others all clamber up for the title of Azure Dragoon.

Estinien learns of loss later than all of the other boys, and wonders if maybe if he experienced loss earlier, maybe he would be able to handle it well in battle. It doesn’t matter what life Estinien leads, he will never handle death with grace and dignity. Have you ever seen a wyvern tear into a man with it’s jaw? Have you ever seen so much blood in your life? War with man is one thing Estinien believes, but war with a beast is worse. He doesn’t yet know that both are awful and sinking, and he has never killed a man before. All dragons are wolves, and everyone are sheep for slaughter and once again Estinien is a shepherd and the lance is his cane and it thrums into the land as a warning to the wolves and a signal to the sheep to flee.  

(In another life, Estinien would be taken by the war, he would wear a mask in form of a helm. He would have lost his family, and lost himself to fighting the good fight and held himself as the Azure Dragoon. And he would still think of himself as a shepherd with a lance fighting off a fierce pack of wolves with jaws that pierce. But that’s no matter because his lance pierces, too.)

Estinien doesn’t believe in dying with dignity, not when it’s wartime. There is nothing dignifying about fighting the so called good fight, when these are his comrades who are dying, boys who don’t care if they die because all they can see are ghosts and ghosts and ghosts and the howling of wyverns. Like always, it isn’t until later when Estinen learns of things such as sacrifice and the quiet sort of dignity that it comes with.

(In another life, Estinien hears of Haurchefant Greystone and The Vault. He hears about how the man of almost 30 summers, took the final blow for the Warrior of Light. He hears about their hands cradling the other’s, about _how a smile better suits a hero_. Lady Iceheart smiled as she fell, as well. Something unknown to him, but when she fell, it was something that he felt thrumming and incessant.)

In this life, Estinien’s family lives and with them so does his heart. His orbit continues to remain intact, despite the loss of the battlefield. In this life, Estinien is able to give others a chance and listen. He would never agree straight away, or maybe he wouldn’t agree at all. In the end, he’s still himself: brusque and a pain in the arse, but he would listen to this Lady Iceheart’s story. Only this time, he would come out of the conversation calling her “Ysayle.”

He's a shepherd, she's a prophet and maybe together they can make a pretty good team. 

**Author's Note:**

> listen i don't care if estinien isn't the azure dragoon in this world, i want him to change the world with ysayle...my dream team...guys im v bi for them both....SHE IS A PROPHET...HE IS A SHEPHERD.... this is an au where they save the world and maybe i can continue this into a thing?? give me strength while i try to work out canon in this? i think i imagine this scenario to be purely the ishgard crew w no wol or anything tbh 
> 
> hopefully i can polish this and edit this later as well, i just wanted to throw this out here 
> 
> also!! i just? i like it when heroes doesn't assume greatness in their stations and just are another solider and are doing what they can. also i do imagine scenarios of alberic offering estinien the position and just getting "nah." was estinien being a shepherd boy fanon or canon? who knows? certainly not me, but guess whose wol is bffs w estinien due to being shepherd bros.


End file.
